I like to walk, but I don’t like to run. In fact, I hate running. My wife and I will be out walking together, and sometimes she’ll try to trick me into running. She says, “Let’s run!”

“I hate running.”

“Let’s just run to the end of the block.”

But I already know it will go beyond that. We’ll run to the end of the block, and sure enough, she says, “Let’s run to the end of the next block.”

When I’m walking, I’m happy. But the moment I go into even a slow jog, I move from relative happiness to pure misery.

Ephesians 4:1 tells us to “walk worthy of the calling with which you were called” (NKJV). The term walking that is used in the Bible is an interesting one. Galatians 5:16 says, “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh” (NKJV), and Colossians 2:6 tells us, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (NKJV).

When you walk with someone, you talk with them. Sometimes my wife will take walks with some of her friends, and these so-called walks will last for three hours. So when she tells me that she’s going on a walk with her friends, I’ll say, “Don’t call it a walk. Call it what it is. You’re going on a talk.” They walk together, and they talk forever—in a good way.

When the Bible refers to walking with God, it’s the same idea. It’s not as though we’re trying to beat God in a race. Rather, we want to keep pace with Him. We don’t want to lag behind, and we don’t want to run ahead of Him. We want to stay in sync with Him. That is walking with God.